Margaret Bourke-White

By: Julia

How did Margaret Bourke-White influence America today?

Margaret Bourke-White influenced America today by taking pictures of different perspectives of objects. She also takes pictures so you could really see the angles and lines differently on an object. She changed the way a photographer could take a picture.

Margaret was born on June 14th, 1904. She lived in Bronx, New York, then when she was little she moved to New Jersey with her family. When she was young her dad had photos hanging around the house. She used to pretend to take pictures with a cigar box. When Margaret grew older she went to college at Cornell University. When she was at college she took a class with a professional photographer, Clarence White. But on the side she wrote journals when she had a chance. In college she met Everett Chapmann that was in engineering major. They got married and lived their dreams. In 1971 she passed away.


Margaret was a photographer and she wrote journals when she had a chance. She mostly took pictures of man-made objects. She also took pictures from different prospectives of objects with the angles and lines. She changed from taking pictures mostly of man-made objects to photographing the struggles in the U.S. during those times. When she did that she made her pictures a lot stronger feeling to the world.

Margaret got her popular photographers in Fortune Magazine. Then after getting her photographs in that magazine, Life Magazine saw her photographs and put them in their magazine. Margaret was known as an aggressive photographer who would never let anything interfere with her picture taking. She started her career at Cornell University and after all that experience she became a famous photographer. At Cornell she also got a lot of experience from photographer Clarence White. She also got the interest by her father from hanging pictures around the house that he took.

Margaret mostly took pictures of man-made objects at first, but than when the country was in hard situations she focused on that. When she was in college she took pictures of buildings from different prospective with the angles and lines. When Margaret Bourke-White was not that famous she took pictures of different objects that people didn’t normally notice around the world. Then people liked the different kind of photographer she was.

Works Cited:

"Margaret Bourke-White." Photography Workshops and Photo Seminars On-line. 18 May 2009 <http://www.photo-seminars.com/Fame/MargaretWhite.htm>.

Welch, Catherine A. Margaret Bourke-White racing with a dream. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, 1998.

Welch, Catherine A. Margaret Bourke-White. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, 1997.


Sandler, Martin W. America through the lens photographers who changed the nation. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2005.